The reigning Super Bowl champions coasted past the Saints Sunday afternoon, 36-20, at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, to claim their first victory of the season. And Tom Brady led the way 10 days after calling out his team’s attitude following their embarrassing loss to the Chiefs in the season opener.

1. In 2016, the Patriots finished the season with just three players on the injured reserve: LB Jonathan Freeny (shoulders), TE Rob Gronkowski (back), and TE Greg Scruggs (knee). Two other players were on the PUP list and did not play all season: OG Tre Jackson (knee) and OT Sebastian Vollmer (everything).

This year, the Patriots are in much worse shape. WR Julian Edelman (ACL), CB Cyrus Jones (ACL), EDGE Derek Rivers (ACL), EDGE Caleb Kidder, and TE Matt Lengel were all placed on the injured reserve prior to the start of the season and cannot return this year, while EDGE Shea McClellin, WR Malcolm Mitchell, and DT Vincent Valentine were placed on the injured reserve after week 1 and are eligible to return.

FOXBORO — These Patriots comebacks never get old. And apparently, neither does Tom Brady.

The reigning champs were all but buried yesterday for the second time in as many games at Gillette Stadium, but Brady executed the 52nd game-winning drive of his career in their 36-33 victory against the Houston Texans.

File this under something to monitor moving forward: Are the Patriots using FS Devin McCourty to replace SS Patrick Chung in the line-up?

McCourty has played nearly every single defensive snap this year, including every snap over the past three weeks, while Chung has seen his snaps decline from 97% in week 2 to 73% in week 3, and just 54% against the Panthers.

In theory, this would make some sense. The Patriots gave Duron Harmon a nice extension this offseason and he’s played 82% of the defensive snaps this year. With Harmon a pure free safety, the coaching staff would have to move McCourty into Chung’s old role in two-safety sets. So maybe it’s as simple as the coaches believing that strong safety McCourty and free safety Harmon is superior to free safety McCourty and strong safety Chung.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski on Tuesday expressed frustration over how inconsistently offensive pass interference penalties are officiated. Gronkowski was penalized for OPI in Sunday's loss to the Carolina Panthers in what coach Bill Belichick later said was a "tough call."

"If the consistency was there 100 percent, then I'd be cool with whatever it is," Gronkowski said. "One week, we're told we can play, it really isn't going to be called, they can hold and you can slap off their hands. Then the next week, if you touch the guy, it's a PI. I just wish I knew the consistency, so I can base my game off and practice and be prepared for the game and know the rules going in from week to week."

Gronkowski and offensive pass interference penalties were a hot topic in 2015, when he was called for it twice during a game against the Denver Broncos. At the time, he had led the NFL with six OPI calls.

The New England Patriots came into Thursday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers allowing a league-worst 456.8 points per game and an average of 32 points per game through the first month of the regular season.

They held the Buccaneers to just 14 points but had to sweat out a final throw to the end zone to escape with a 19-14 victory in Tampa Bay.